An appreciation of horse logging…

[Ethan Tapper]

I am working for a large-scale forestry company right now. Most of the logging contractors we hire are highly mechanized (grapple skidder, stroke delimber, feller buncher, loader-slasher, etc.) and cut a ton of wood ( a crew with a feller buncher, 3 grapples, a stroker and two loaders cuts about 35 trailer loads (200,000 board feet) a week). They do a good job considering what their equipment is, but the woods after this equipment moves through is not like we leave it after logging with the horses. There is a lot of soil compaction, disturbance and erosion (and loss), incredibly wide skid roads and a ton of residual stand damage, along the roads and in the woods. These guys are the responsible ones, too.

I know that people need their wood, and God knows I’d rather see them use wood for things over other materials that are available, but I can’t help but be nostalgic about logging with the horses; cutting less wood, working slower, more carefully, more quietly. It’s a special thing, and I hope that one day we can find a way to balance our need for forest products with this kind of animal-powered attitude. Until then, I suppose we’ll keep on getting the cut out and hope that it doesn’t come back to haunt us in 1 or 2 rotations.

[Gabe Ayers]

Ethan-
It makes me a little sad to hear about your experience with the mechanized boys up there, but we do need the mechanical operators who are responsible. I know that horses are not the right tool for every job, but they could be used much more often for the right tasks with the right teamsters. I have a hard time imagining the we have enough forests resources left to have operations like that cutting 200,000 bf a week in New England, but maybe I am just being pessimistic.

I do hope that, as a forester, you will be willing to work with folks who use animals in the woods. As much as there is a shortage of professional teamsters, there is an equal or even greater shortage of foresters who understand the unique qualities or animals in the woods – both the advantages and limitations. More and more I am running into foresters who cannot move beyond the traditional, industrial model enough to recognize what horses can bring to the table. Instead, they simply see the limitations…we just don’t fit their model very well, and that needs to change.
-Brad

[Carl Russell]

Ethan, I applaud you taking on this type of work…… It is the right time for you to broaden your applied forestry knowledge. My early forestry experiences were as a procurement forester for a large regional softwood mill. My experiences there filled my mind with lots of questions, and really helped me to see the contradictions between what I had learned about ecological forestry and what was being practiced as “Forestry” across the landscape by so-called foresters primarily to suit the purposes of the industry.

I hope that you can see how the forestry product is compromised for the sake of the machines. Some devilish belief that the need for wood is so great that the only way to harvest it is with machines, therefore the forestry must be tailored to suit the needs of the mechanical operations.

Horse-logging can be a pastoral, relaxed, artful way to work in the woods, but it also can be a cost-effective way to adhere to basic ecological and even silviculture principles that machines can’t afford to address.

Take a minute one day, and try to convince your operators to keep the machine on the main skid trail, pulling cable 100-150 to individual trees to preserve crop trees, or patches of regen, while marking to maintain high residual stocking…….. Then ask them what they would need to be paid to make that happen……

At any rate, I’m sure this experience for you will be foundational to an effective forestry career. Before I started working with horses, I chopped 100’s of thousands of board feet for skidders…… it was ball-breaking bullshit work, but I learned a lot about efficient chainsaw use and production……

Good luck, Carl

[Baystatetom]

I have had similar experiences myself, while I hate to think of those mistakes 15 years ago I do think it helped mold me into the forester I am now. I gave up on those big machines and huge crews a long time ago and have only been working with cable skidders and small forwarders for several years now. I will say though, I recently toured a watershed managed by one of my coworkers who is into that bigger and faster type logging and I was really impressed with the quality of the work that was done there. He has spent years getting to know his operators and their limitations as well as working with those operators to get the job done he wants for the land he manages. He had a huge feller buncher on this one site that dropped 40mbf between 7 am and when I got there around 10:30, but this operator carried the trees up right while he backed down his same tracks and laid the trees directly into his skidder roads. I was really impressed at how little residual damage was done to the understory, I am sure it was less then if the trees were felled with a chainsaw. Don’t get me wrong I am not saying I am going to run out and find a crew with a 20 ton machine but there is crews out there that can do a good job in spite of them. I think if you prove to be a good forester the crews you work with will respect you enough to listen to your input as you try and figure out how to do the best job your circumstances allow. As you get more experienced it will be easier to figure out how you can minimize the impacts and when you advance to have total control over the jobs you can put your foot down hard on poor operators. A lot of it just comes down to having the right relationship with the loggers and it can take years to build those relationships. Don’t give up, take your lumps and learn from them!
~Tom

[Gabe Ayers]

This conversation reinforces the notion that for every tool there is a “right tool for the job.” Sometimes that is a pair of horses and sometimes that is a large machine. Success and failure depends not so much on the tools themselves but with those who are using them in the woods, right?
-Brad

[Ethan Tapper]

Agreed. I think I told a story on this forum of a forester whose first experience with horse-logging was seeing a horse logger skidding a log down a brook… It takes a lot of skill and consciousness to do a good job in the woods, not just a good set up.

I do see examples of, as Carl said, ‘compromised’ forestry to enable the use of these machines. I don’t really know if, if you looked at just it effects on soils, these type of machine should ever be in the woods, and no operator can change that type of effect that his machine has. That alone is a huge compromise, but it also extends to silviculture and residual stand objectives and standards. I also know that the performance of these operators is pressured by the financial strain of owning many hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment… You have to cut a lot of wood to pay the crew, fix the machines and make those loan payments. Foresters know this and have to put them somewhere where they will be able to work fast and cut a lot of wood.

But, again, more and more it seems like I would rather see this type of woods work done than have people use more fossil fuel intensive building materials for their houses, or than let the land be cleared for development. In providing wood products (which these large operations do the bulk of), we in some ways pick the lesser of two evils.

[Carl Russell]

@Ethan Tapper 35448 wrote:

……But, again, more and more it seems like I would rather see this type of woods work done than have people use more fossil fuel intensive building materials for their houses, or than let the land be cleared for development. In providing wood products (which these large operations do the bulk of), we in some ways pick the lesser of two evils.

I’ve thought a lot about this since you posted this…..

These wood products ARE fossil fuel intensive. And the economy of scale needed to offset the costs of fuel, maintenance, insurance, and finance charges is a hugely increasing irreversible, unsustainable, ecological impact.

The income derived from this production goes in significant minority to the operators and their communities, and in large part is exported out to mega corporations controlling those fixed costs.

I understand the lesser of two evils argument…….it is a trap.

I don’t discount your need to get a job that exposes you to the industry and gives you experience plying your trade, but under the art and science there are principles. Principles of ecology, principles of fair trade, principles of community, and principles of stewardship.

The “necessary evil” argument is meant to weaken, or invalidate, those principles.

Horse-loggers are by no means virtuous, but we have a lot more flexibility and capability to live and work by our principles…….

Once a habit is established it is hard to break. I have interaction with many professional foresters who have succumbed to the “necessary evil” doctrine. They aren’t doing anything different that their peers, so it seems reasonable to them, and their culture is establishing a landscape that reflects acceptance to these compromises so that the general public has accepted it as the norm.

I hope you can use this experience to refine your forestry vision. I know you have some very keen understanding of ecology and forestry, and you are gaining an understanding of harvesting and industry.

Just remember that there is a growing number of folks who are making a real difference in changing the established modern norms of forestry and timber harvesting, and you have direct access to us.

Carl

[Baystatetom]

Once again, Well said Carl!
Tom

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